Socioeconomic Differences

Projected Time

Total - 1 hour Lesson - 23 minutes Check for Understanding - 30-40 minutes

Prerequisites

None

Motivation

A person’s socioeconomic status can inform their identity, as it affects the community around them and their lived experiences. Therefore, there are some shared experiences among people who come from blue-collar backgrounds and move to white-collar jobs. The experience can be unsettling, and feel alienating at times, as it might be hard to understand a different workplace environment, and experience potentially negative responses from people around them. The purpose of covering this topic is to help people recognize what might cause those feelings, and be able to address them when they arise.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Anticipate certain pitfalls and aversions that come with belonging to a certain socioeconomic class
• Learn the value of social capital and importance of asking for help from their fellow colleagues and seniors.
• Learn that it’s normal for white-collar professionals to want reasons behind tasks and therefore one must not panic but rather give an appropriate reason for the decision.

Specific Things to Learn

• The term “class straddler”
• The value of social capital
• The priority of networking

Materials

• Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano - https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Limbo.html?id=icCNDsFXqtgC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qSol4y0rqQi7yrjtXZ3J4EL0BQwW6hZUkHIxDRWooHw/edit#slide=id.p

Lesson (approx 23 minutes)

1. Research the term “Class Straddler.”
2. Some experiences many class straddlers share:
   • Feeling out of place.
     • Overworking in order to “fit in” amongst their workspace.
   • Civil discussions about problems and solutions may feel like arguments.
   • It can be hard to accept compliments.
   • Many such class straddlers support extended families as well.
   • They have learned to live with isolation.
   • They may not know the value of therapy.
   • Dressing, eating, and drinking differently.
     • Having scorned the rich and their lifestyle and feeling guilty or judging one’s self in that atmostphere.

Check for Understanding (37-40 minutes)

1. Discuss problems and solutions.
2. Summarize.

Supplemental Materials

1. Straddling college and working class-by Julissa Trevio - The following article derives a narrative about the problems people with working-class backgrounds face in elite environments.

2. Class straddling on being formerly working class—by ridefreefearlessmoney - In the following article the author shares her personal experience regarding “class straddling.”

3. “Hidden Rules of Class at Work” by Ruby K. Payne and Don L. Krabill

4. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

5. Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano